Baja fishing on the 'down low'

Vertical jigging

Grass roots tournaments revisited

Pedro and Julio Meza, on the left organize a series of tournaments throughout the Baja Peninsula, Baja Norte and Baja Sur. 

Pedro Sors, a dedicated sportfisherman, is the host and producer of one of the most popular Mexican television sportfishing shows called Con Caña y Carrete.  He and Julio Meza, a San Quintin produce grower and owner of FISHCO.com organize a series of tournaments throughout the Baja Peninsula, Baja Norte and Baja Sur.  These tournaments include the Governor's Cup series which feature a three-venue contest that was held this year in San Felipe, San Quintin and Ensenada.

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet Pedro and Meza at a Governor's Cup in San Quintin.  Aboard Julio's center console Contender name "Blessed" speeding out the inner bay with Julio at the helm, they explained the details of the Governor's Cup series.

The one day tournaments, which are open to anyone, offer prizes of cash and equipment for the largest fish in both surface and bottom categories for men, women and children divisions. In addition, anglers accumulate points at each of the three events that are totaled to determine the combined overall champions for the series. Each event is featured on the Con Caña y Carrete television program.

The series was first conceived during the term of Baja Sur’s  El Gobernador Narciso Agúndez Montaño in 2006. It was designed to introduce sportfishing to the locals, involving not only the adults in the many small communities that dot the coastline of the state, but the children as well.  When El Gobernador Agúndez left office the incoming Gobernador decided to abandon the series for economic reasons. 

At that point, recognizing that every tournament is an opportunity for sportfishing education in small communities, Meza and Sors decided to work together to resume the important series. Punta Eugenia, Abreojos and La Bocana were added to the list along with the tournaments planned for the future.

Pedro Sors' interest in sportfishing is deep and goes way beyond just catching fish, which he seems to be doing somewhere in Mexico every week. In 2003 he discovered that sportfishing was not officially recognized by the Mexican government. It didn't exist legally at that time. The National Council of Fisheries only recognized groups officially designated by the government.

He began speaking to fishing friends encouraging them to unify and form a Federation of Sportfishing. Taking advantage of the people he had met though his television program, several years later in 2005 through his efforts and those of other friends and acquaintances, the Federación Nacional de Pesca Deportiva A.C  was formed representing sportfishing clubs in seven Mexican states initially. 

Since then, the group has grown to represent sportfishing clubs in twenty-seven states with a combined membership of 32,000.

According to Sors, founder and past president, some of their accomplishments include:   

            Acquiring two seats on the National Board of Tourism that meets twice a year.

            They encouraged states to facilitate the sale of fishing licenses, allowing the license fees to be used in        individual states. 

            Convinced the Secretary of the need for more boat launching ramps resulting in an ongoing program that resulted in 80 new or improved ramps between 2009 and 2011.

            Persuaded the Federal Secretary of the Treasury, a golfer, to eliminate Boat Permits by arguing that golfers were not required to pay green fees for their golf carts so why should the government charge a sportfisherman a fee for the boat he fishes from.

            The Federation has fielded and won in several International World Sportfishing Championships,  as well as hosting Big Game and Bass championships in Mexico.

            The Federation addressed a law forbidding  filleting fish aboard a boat and convinced the Secretary to amend the wording to read that it is unlawful to unload filleted fish.

            It was against the law to fish with live bait. The Secretary was uninformed about sportfishing. When the Federation explained how many families supported themselves by selling live bait he realized the law needed to be changed.

These are the kinds of issues the Federation seeks to change. Though it has had some setbacks and failures along the way, it has had many successes.

Julio Meza and Pedro Sors, both avid and passionate Mexican sportfishermen, seem to be taking up where the group I wrote about in May 2009 http://roadtrekker.blogspot.com/2009/05/grass-roots-tournaments.html left off, continuing to introduce and promote sportfishing throughout Baja.  Their efforts on behalf of sportfishing should be applauded by anglers everywhere!

Home grown abalone…

I originally met Enrique Espinoza, Cooperativa Progresso Administrator, in 2008 when Juanchy a colorful local fisherman had arranged a trip for me with the local abalone divers.

Subsequently I wrote a Roadtrek column titled "A New Breed…Time Will Tell" praising Enrique and his group's efforts attempting to restore their local abalone and lobster fisheries to sustainable levels.

I wrote "After watching the commercial fishermen and their Cooperativa's decimate marine resource after resource in Baja over the years, listening to Enrique as he enthusiastically outlined goals and techniques being implemented by his group to maintain the resources, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of hope that maybe some of the new breed of commercial fishermen are beginning to get it right!"

Recently I returned to La Bocana and was invited by my friend Enrique to tour their Aquaculture facility where they were growing abalone. Seriously, home grown abalone?  What a concept!  I can see a run on Aquarium equipment stores when this gets out.

Of course, I accepted and recruited another friend, Pedro Sors, producer and host of Cana y Carrete, a popular Mexican sportfishing television program, as my interpreter.

We began the tour of the nearly 9,000 sq ft. facility in a narrow room with tiled walls and white plastic buckets arranged around the parameter where a brood stock of twenty abalone mate and reproduce enough larva to ultimately replenish the abalone harvested, and more.

Using ultraviolet lights to stimulate growth the larvae begin to grow. When they have reached a predetermined size, they are transferred into temperature-controlled vats and fed  a carefully monitored plankton diet. They remain in these vats until they have grown to be visible to the naked eye. The next step is to move the now visible mollusks to the more than twenty recirculation tanks located in a large outside area.  

Each tank is equipped with special  boxes made of plastic sheeting for the larvae to cling to as they continue to grow.

As the crop of eight to nine thousand grow, they are carefully monitored and each individual abalone is assigned a number which in placed on the top of their now formed shell, allowing the staff to fine-tune the diet of each generation for optimum results. Most of the abalone are transplanted to the wild in ten to eleven months and are about 1 inch in diameter at that time.

Oceanologist Aguilar Daniel and Jose Manuel Aguilar technical assistant maintain the facility normally. Only when the workload increases are additional personnel brought in to assist them.

The entire system was developed initially by visits to similar facilities in other countries around the world along with the help of visiting technicians from the United States, Japan and Chile, to name just a few of the countries that assisted in the early stages of this remarkable program.

With the knowledge provided and many trial and error adjustments which allowed for local temperature fluctuations along the Pacific, as well as adjustments to the algae and seaweed diet, the  success rate has grown and the mortality rate remains at only 5%. The twenty-three year-old program has become extremely efficient, allowing for the harvest of abalone while returning enough to juveniles to the beds to maintain the sustainability of this valuable shellfish resource for the community.

While the Cooperativa's success with the abalone is impressive, there is much more. The lobster population which was once nearly decimated by overharvesting along the coast line in the 40-kilometer concession assigned to the group was recently named as one of five lobster habitats in the world that have returned to sustainable levels. . .a remarkable achievement for this remote community of approximately 1,500.

Beginning his second term as Administrator at the beginning of the year, Enrique Espinoza, Cooperativa Progresso Administrator's excitement is infectious as he explains the successes of his group. His eyes sparkle as he proudly gives the details of how the nearly 200 members voted to forbid gillnets in the nine-mile-long La Bocana estero effective at the beginning of 2011, and the protection of Merro (black seabass and grouper) making it illegal to catch them commercially as well as limiting them recreationally.

To replace the loss of income for the local fishermen, he is now encouraging members to look to sportfishing for a more reliable income stream. His organization now offers several programs for members to purchase on credit quality sportfishing equipment at a deep discount for those who choose that path, as well as promoting the nine-mile estuary for sportfishing, building small cabins, and training members to conduct sportfishing trips. 

Cooperativa Progresso and their leader, Enrique Espinoza, are a shining light in the dimly lit world of Baja commercial fishing.

http://cooperativaprogreso.com/index.html

http://roadtrekker.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-breedtime-will-tell.html

La Bocana hosts Grande Torneo

Several of my friends have accused me of flying low when I drive back and forth on Mex 1. Over Labor Day weekend I had the opportunity to do just that. I was invited to fly to La Bocana, Baja Sur, in a Cessna 402 with the organizers of the Torneo Internacional de Pesca.

We departed from Ensenada Military airport at midday and flying at low altitude down the west coast of Baja, gazing down on the sprawling Baja countryside punctuated by small fish camps, villages and towns on miles of deserted beaches and wide open spaces, it was a fascinating revelation of how much of Baja is still undeveloped.

The entire trip to Abreojos, including the brief landing at San Quintin to pick up the remainder of the tournament staff, was slightly less than three hours. (Note to self: Find sponsor to cover flying cost!).  As the plane taxied to a stop on the dirt airstrip and the door flew open, a group of Cooperativa Progresso members led by President Enrique Espinoza greeted us. After introductions, handshakes and abrazos, everyone entered the waiting pickups and headed north for ten miles to La Bocana leaving a cloud of dust; then straight to the beach where bright orange canopies provided shade from the blazing afternoon sun for the growing crowd of eager fishermen.    

Business was brisk at the tables of local and visiting entrepreneurs that were covered with both new and used tackle as would-be anglers tested the bend of the rods and the smoothness of the reel drags. Of course there was a coffin-sized cooler filled with soft drinks and cerveza covered with ice that attracted its own crowd.

Throughout the afternoon, sponsors and organizers Pedro Sors, owner of Caña &  Carrete, and Julio Meza,  owner of Fishco, the largest Shimano dealer in Baja, renewed old friendships while making new ones. The big swell and large surf that had pounded the beaches all week was a major topic of conversation that at times was nearly drowned out by blaring Mexican music. By six o’clock, 121 anglers fishing on 35 boats had registered and paid their $25 entry fee which included their boat fee.

The music was silenced and the Captains’ meeting was called to order. Tournament officials covered the tournament rules, based on I.G.F.A. rules, in detail, as well as the Mexican Sportfishing regulations and the qualifying species which included yellowfin tuna, dorado, marlin, yellowtail and halibut.   Noticeably missing from the list were grouper and black seabass.

Late last year the members of Cooperativa Progresso voted to implement several changes in the regulations in their area. Grouper and black seabass would no longer be fished commercially; furthermore only one of either species may be caught per day with sportfishing tackle and it MUST be released.  Another significant change was that the entire esteros is now off limits for gillnets of any kind. Both rule changes were effective January 1, 2011. Hopefully other Cooperativa's will follow Progresso's lead in the future. Imagine Magdalena Bay without nets?

When the meeting was finished, the music resumed and the party continued into the night. Early Saturday morning the beach was a beehive of activity as anglers found their assigned boats and loaded their gear. At exactly 7:00 a.m., Julio Meza fired the flare signaling the beginning of the tournament. As the boats sped out of the boca, it was clear that the favored direction was to the north toward San Hipolito.

By the time the weigh-in began a 3:00 p.m., the beach was packed with family and friends. While some children played in the water, others were fishing for the prizes reserved just for them. Meanwhile a Mexican band played as fish were brought to the scale. An animated volleyball game entertained others. Closer to the beach a small traditional Mexican combo drew its own crowd. Carne de Puerco tacos with all the trimmings was served for anyone who was hungry. Of course the huge cooler had been refilled and people crowded around for just one more drink.

As the fish were weighed, the seven largest were hung up for display only to be replaced as a larger one came in. By the end of the day it was clear that though the fishing was good, the yellowtail had dominated the catch and the event had become a "yellowtail shootout" though there were a few small dorado and halibut. The largest fish was a 31+ pound yellow and prizes were awarded through the 7th largest plus special awards for fish caught from the shore by young anglers.

The event was sponsored by Cooperativa Progresso, Julio Meza, Fishco, Shimano and Pedro Sors of Caña y Carrete.

Home grown abalone…

I originally met Enrique Espinoza, Cooperativa Progresso Administrator, in 2008 when Juanchy a colorful local fisherman had arranged a trip for me with the local abalone divers.

Subsequently I wrote a Roadtrek column titled "A New Breed…Time Will Tell" praising Enrique and his group's efforts attempting to restore their local abalone and lobster fisheries to sustainable levels.

I wrote "After watching the commercial fishermen and their Cooperativa's decimate marine resource after resource in Baja over the years, listening to Enrique as he enthusiastically outlined goals and techniques being implemented by his group to maintain the resources, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of hope that maybe some of the new breed of commercial fishermen are beginning to get it right!"

Recently I returned to La Bocana and was invited by my friend Enrique to tour their Aquaculture facility where they were growing abalone. Seriously, home grown abalone?  What a concept!  I can see a run on Aquarium equipment stores when this gets out.

Of course, I accepted and recruited another friend, Pedro Sors, producer and host of Cana y Carrete, a popular Mexican sportfishing television program, as my interpreter.

We began the tour of the nearly 9,000 sq ft. facility in a narrow room with tiled walls and white plastic buckets arranged around the parameter where a brood stock of twenty abalone mate and reproduce enough larva to ultimately replenish the abalone harvested, and more.

Using ultraviolet lights to stimulate growth the larvae begin to grow. When they have reached a predetermined size, they are transferred into temperature-controlled vats and fed  a carefully monitored plankton diet. They remain in these vats until they have grown to be visible to the naked eye. The next step is to move the now visible mollusks to the more than twenty recirculation tanks located in a large outside area.  Each tank is equipped with special  boxes made of plastic sheeting for the larvae to cling to as they continue to grow.

As the crop of eight to nine thousand grow, they are carefully monitored and each individual abalone is assigned a number which in placed on the top of their now formed shell, allowing the staff to fine-tune the diet of each generation for optimum results. Most of the abalone are transplanted to the wild in ten to eleven months and are about 1 inch in diameter at that time.

Oceanologist Aguilar Daniel and Jose Manuel Aguilar technical assistant maintain the facility normally. Only when the workload increases are additional personnel brought in to assist them.

The entire system was developed initially by visits to similar facilities in other countries around the world along with the help of visiting technicians from the United States, Japan and Chile, to name just a few of the countries that assisted in the early stages of this remarkable program.

With the knowledge provided and many trial and error adjustments which allowed for local temperature fluctuations along the Pacific, as well as adjustments to the algae and seaweed diet, the  success rate has grown and the mortality rate remains at only 5%. The twenty-three year-old program has become extremely efficient, allowing for the harvest of abalone while returning enough to juveniles to the beds to maintain the sustainability of this valuable shellfish resource for the community.

While the Cooperativa's success with the abalone is impressive, there is much more. The lobster population which was once nearly decimated by overharvesting along the coast line in the 40-kilometer concession assigned to the group was recently named as one of five lobster habitats in the world that have returned to sustainable levels. . .a remarkable achievement for this remote community of approximately 1,500.

Beginning his second term as Administrator at the beginning of the year, Enrique Espinoza, Cooperativa Progresso Administrator's excitement is infectious as he explains the successes of his group. His eyes sparkle as he proudly gives the details of how the nearly 200 members voted to forbid gillnets in the nine-mile-long La Bocana estero effective at the beginning of 2011, and the protection of Merro (black seabass and grouper) making it illegal to catch them commercially as well as limiting them recreationally.

To replace the loss of income for the local fishermen, he is now encouraging members to look to sportfishing for a more reliable income stream. His organization now offers several programs for members to purchase on credit quality sportfishing equipment at a deep discount for those who choose that path, as well as promoting the nine-mile estuary for sportfishing, building small cabins, and training members to conduct sportfishing trips. 

Cooperativa Progresso and their leader, Enrique Espinoza, are a shining light in the dimly lit world of Baja commercial fishing.

http://cooperativaprogreso.com/index.html

http://roadtrekker.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-breedtime-will-tell.html

Angling and diving area wins development smack down

Not an everyday occurrence, but it barely raises eyebrows when a yellowfin tuna or dorado is taken from the beach in this area.

Ray Cannon wrote about the area and its steeply sloped contoured bottom plunging to 100 fathoms a mere quarter of a mile from shore.

Punta Arena, often referred to as the Lighthouse, has been a long-time angling favorite for locals and visitors alike. Ray Cannon wrote about the area and its steeply sloped contoured bottom plunging to 100 fathoms a mere quarter of a mile from shore. Nowhere else in the Sea of Cortez will you find depths that close to the shore. Not an everyday occurrence, but it barely raises eyebrows when a yellowfin tuna or dorado is taken from the beach in this area. Trophy-sized roosterfish are often landed here practically is the shadow of the towering lighthouse.

A little farther down the beach toward Baja's tip, Cabo Pulmo was another of the jewels of the Baja mentioned by Cannon.  The pristine beaches of Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park border a shallow bay that is home to one of only three hard-coral reefs that exist in North America. Surrounded by an undeveloped desert and a remarkable mountain range, the Park was established in 1995 after the over-fishing by commercial and recreational fishermen caused an alarming decline in marine life. At one time it was slated for development, but thanks to the efforts of local and international conservation groups, it is now a protected national park, a regenerative area for hundreds of species which includes four of the seven species of sea turtles that arrive here to nest on its beaches, or breed and forage in surrounding waters.

In the 16 years since Cabo Pulmo was protected, the fish community has recovered and is now considered among the most healthy in the Sea of Cortez making a case for the importance of protected marine areas.

For the past several years much of the property, including the beachfront from the Lighthouse at Punta Arena in East Cape to the northern edge of Cabo Pulmo, has been purchased by a group from Spain.

The Alicante (Spanish) group, Hansa Urbana, with approval already granted by environmental authorities planned a mega-development covering 3,800 hectares, an area the size of the city of San Jose del Cabo, the largest of all of the proposed developments in the Cape region. The project will include a marina dug into the coast, golf courses, homes, hotels and condos, a new airport for private jets plus a commercial center and a small city to house workers. Future projections include upward of 20,000 people adjacent to Cabo Pulmo and Punta Arena with up to 30,600 hotel rooms, or 10,200 more homes.

In an area that is sparsely populated that contains fragile ecosystems and a limited water supply, a larger population is not sustainable.  Along with many other locals, the director of the Cabo Pulmo National Park, Javier Alejandro Gonzalez, voiced his concerns that a development of this magnitude would overwhelm the fragile eco-system of the area. Their views were shared by a group of environmental NGOs that have formed a coalition to fight for the reef and to stop the development.

That group is led by the U.S. [NGO] Wildcoast; the Mexican [NGOs] Niparajá, Pro Natura Northwest, Community and Diversity, [and] Friends of Cabo Pulmo; [and] academics from Scripps Center in the U.S. and the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur.

Fay Crevoshay, the Communications Director of the Wildcoast, argued that the several golf courses for the tourist citadel will have "used chemicals that will flow into the sea when it rains and will kill the coral."

She also said it is "schizophrenic" for Mexican authorities [to have created] a national park, which they preserved for years, and then "they grant a permit to a developer in order to destroy it."

According to the Gringo Gazette, a local newspaper in Los Cabos, Representative Elvira Quesada of Semarnat, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources at the federal level, said that the Cabo Cortés development is currently being reviewed by more than 100 scientists from many different organizations who are working on the environmental impact statement which is needed for the project to continue. This is the first time that various oversight agencies have worked together on an impact statement. More studies are needed besides the impact statement and they will take years to complete. For the project to continue, these studies must prove beyond any doubt that no harm will come to the protected Cabo Pulmo Marine Park.

It appears that with the Government’s renewed interest, along with the economic woes of Cabo Cortes, Cabo Pulmo Marine Park, along with one of the richest fishing and diving sites in Baja California Sur, will remain safe for a while longer.

July Journey Reflections

The San Ysidro border crossing is also currently being remodeled.

While most Baja travelers who drive Mex 1 don't do back-to-back trips in the same month, I've been doing just that this past month. I drove down in the Roadtrek in early July, flew back home and drove our Ford SUV to Ensenada and back across the border for the WON Coral Tournament, flew back to East Cape for the Bisbee Offshore and then drove the Roadtrek north to California.

Driving down in early July, the grade south of Loreto before Insurgentes was crawling from bottom to top with road crews and heavy equipment removing all the blacktop from the road leaving bare dirt. No news there. In recent years, road repairs have been commonplace up and down the peninsula. What impressed me this time was that on my return trip a month later the grade had been totally repaved and with the exception of painting the centerline, it was complete.   

More recently, road crews are busy on the highways between El Cien and Constitución, south of Loreto, north of Loreto, Bay of Conception, north of Jesús Maria, between Punta Prieta and Cataviña, between San Quintín and Santo Tomás, from the top of the ridge north of Santo Tomás Valley toward Maneadero before Ensenada. And one more repair item, the San Ysidro border crossing is also currently being remodeled. All of this construction prompted several Baja veterans to declare that their recent drives were the worst in twenty-five years. This was bad timing on their part, but twenty-five years ago there were pot holes large enough to lose a rig in  and we would have welcomed construction crews.

If you are driving down soon, allow some extra time for the delays caused by the many delays where the roads are being repaired your next drive on Mex 1.  

As for the cost of fuel, on this trip fuel was $2.80 per gallon for magna and diesel was about $2.84.

In 2005 at East Cape authorities began enforcing a 'no ATV's on the beach' policy with inspectors patrolling the beaches issuing fines and in some cases, confiscating equipment. While I completely agree with the decision to enforce the law, fishing the beach on ATV's was my personal favorite method of fishing. This trip there seemed to be a continuous stream of bikes of every description cruising up and down the East Cape beaches, and I didn't hear of any inspectors patrolling the beaches.  

We did fish the beach with fly rods for several days in July and the four anglers I was with all caught their first rooster from the shore. Nothing huge, but fishing was good and they all had shots at quality fish.

In response to a recent Roadtrekker column where I spoke of the kindness of the Mexican workers when I had a flat, one reader sent me another good Mex 1 story:

"I was driving alone northbound on a weekend that was also a Mexican holiday.  As I approached the large military checkpoint to the north of Jesus Maria there were hundreds of vehicles backed up.  After an hour of creeping along, I was finally at the start of the inspection lanes.  I got out to stretch my legs and struck up a conversation with an officer surveying the chaos.  He asked where I was going.  I explained I was driving to my casa in California and that I had not seen my wife in eight weeks.  I added that I loved her very much and was looking forward to seeing her.  He said "No hay problema" and motioned my truck out of line and to the front.  He then instructed the soldiers to pass me through. I guess that the sympathetic officer had a wife or novia that he missed, too.

I should mention that the exchange with the officer was totally in Spanish.  I must of sounded pretty 'soapy' to him...mucho amor...solitaro... separatos"...Roger F.

A long time reader and WON Tuna Tournament participant , Joe McGinnis,  is planning his 6th Trailer Buddy Boat Cruise from 10/25/2011 'til 11/25/2011.  Since this will be his sixth fishing cruise, he has it pretty well dialed in.

His trip includes a couple of weeks at Mag Bay, Lopez Mateos/San Carlos fishing for wahoo, marlin, tuna in the Pacific ( Thetis Bank) and some inshore estuary snook, etc…then returning to the Sea of Cortez at Santa Rosalia/San Bruno. From there he plans to cross over to San Carlos (mainland Mexico) and Guaymas for a week and then back across to PTO Escondido stopping at many islands.

Anyone interested can contact him at 805 581 2504, at itzlinda@sbcglobal.net  or at Vagabundoswww.vagabundos.com